[Photo: Emily Morter via Unsplash]

Chickens on ICE Raid: The Odd Luck of Peco and Koch Foods [UPDATE-2]

/320 Comments/in , /by

[NB: Note the byline, thanks. Caveat: This post contains speculative content. Updates at the bottom of this post. / ~Rayne]

I have to run an errand, can’t take the time to follow this line of inquiry further. But something about ICE raids conducted in Mississippi today set off my hinky meter.

Why Mississippi, which long-time community member earlofhuntington describes as “so reliably Republican”? Why wouldn’t ICE conduct raids in blue states as they’ve intended to twice this year in order to rattle the Latinx and other brown-skinned voters?

Why wouldn’t they conduct a raid closer to the Mexican border since the Trump administration and its state media organ Fox News have drummed up a manufactured ‘invasion’ crisis?

Why pick established businesses in a deep red state only days after mass shootings of Latinx Americans in El Paso?

This raid was planned, though, they don’t just sweep in. The two businesses, Peco Foods Inc. and Koch Foods Inc. were on somebody’s radar, earmarked in advance.

But why these two over any other businesses — say, golf courses competing with Trump org courses which likely hire undocumented personnel the way Trump’s courses did?

Would golf courses be too obvious and yield too few results? Would such raids piss off the same class of customers who frequent Trump’s courses?

There’s some other reason not obvious to the public.

Perhaps the companies are owned and operated by people who don’t fit Trump and Trump’s minions political ideology? But this is where I have to leave it to run an errand.

I’ll leave you with this (already posted in comments and on Twitter):

And with this:

What do you think? I haven’t had time to look at the other five companies raided today, including PH Food Inc., MP Food Inc., and Pearl River Foods Inc.

Does this also suggest Mississippi is at risk politically if the administration had to pick “so reliably Republican” a state, in spite of a 130-year-old state law preventing black Mississippians from holding elected statewide office if they don’t win 55% of the vote?

UPDATE — 11:10 PM EDT —

Add in unionization of workers as another factor in selection of businesses to raid:

And while some folks note unhappily the workers have been detained and owners/management haven’t been arrested, I’m not certain that won’t yet happen. Somebody might be very happy to see a Democratic donor (or two) behind bars before the 2020 general election primaries begin.

UPDATE — 11:15 PM EDT —

Yeah, Mississippi is undergoing a political tectonic shift; statewide races may be in play.

This is an open thread. Bring all the stray cats and dogs here.

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320 replies
  1. Rayne says:

    I recommend reading the Wikipedia entry on Koch Foods’ owner Joseph Grendys. He sounds like the kind of guy who’d piss off Trump, doesn’t spend money like Trump does. Backstory on his acquisition of Koch Foods. Not the first raid at a Koch Foods’ facility but this is a critical question we need to answer: do we not have enough US workers willing to work in these kinds of food facilities?

    I suppose we could ask Trump why he hired undocumented workers for years at his golf courses.

    • Tracy Lynn says:

      “…do we not have enough US workers willing to work in these kinds of food facilities?”

      No. Apparently not. The conditions in these facilities are not what any American would want to deal with. The pay isn’t stellar, particularly for the working conditions. I mean, think about it: Would anyone born here (or their children) want to work in a chicken processing plant?

      • Rayne says:

        I also wonder how much the 1991 Hamlet fire in a chicken processing plant also discourages US workers from taking such jobs. So many people at the low end of the pay scale know exactly which businesses are riskiest because it’s their lives on the line and little recourse for their families if they die or are maimed for some stupid chicken meat. Hamlet cost 25 lives for chicken.

        • Steve says:

          I work at a Koch plant in Tennessee. We have many American born citizens at the plant. Pay is comparable to other factories in the area. Working conditions are not bad for a factory. Being a meat processing plant the temperature is kept cool much better than a hot steel factory. Place is extremely clean and USDA is on site anytime plant is open,

        • Tracy Lynn says:

          I didn’t mean to disparage your employer. I was thinking more about the very hard jobs (i.e., picking lettuce, working in a slaughter house, etc.) that people don’t really want to think about, much less do.

        • Rayne says:

          Welcome to emptywheel. If are referring to the field asking for a website URL when logging in with a comment, don’t worry about it if you don’t have a personal website. Some of us use other personal social media links — in my case I use my Twitter account URL.

    • Keith says:

      When hiring undocumented workers you get more compliant, easily manipulated, quasi slaves that you can pay like you were in china instead of the USA. If they act up, you simply call ICE and have them deported. Perhaps the call goes to someone else other than ICE directly. You will note that the owner or hiring officer is never charged, at least I have no knowledge of that happening yet. If you are greedy it is the perfect labor solution.

    • John H Miller says:

      Any economist will tell you that “full employment” is NOT 100% employment…it is typically considered to be 96%. The actual percent of “unemployed” as a component of “full employment” simply refers to those individuals who currently do not have a job (I know, that would seem obvious, right?) AND who are actually seeking a job (that is where the variance comes in). So, to answer your question, no we do not have enough people in this country to fill every job opening. To make sure I’m on sound footing with that statement, here is a better explanation from The Balance:

      “The lowest unemployment rate was 1.2% in 1944. It may seem counterintuitive to think unemployment can’t get too low, but it can. Even in a healthy economy, there always should be a natural rate of unemployment. People move before they get a new job or are getting retrained for a better job. Others have just started looking for work and are waiting until they find just the right job. Even when the unemployment rate is 4%, it’s difficult for companies to expand because they have a hard time finding good workers.

      The unemployment rate under Trump, while it is NOT the lowest EVER in the history of the world as he claims, it is incredibly low (3.6%, which matches a 50-year-old figure). None of this sheds any light on Trump’s determination to round up and deport Mexicans and other nationalities since they fill a very valuable role in our economy. Even those who are here illegally are paying taxes (although they get no benefits), contributing to Social Security (although they are ineligible to receive benefits), and paying all types of taxes and other assessments on local, state and federal levels that alleviate some of the burden that “real Americans” have to face. The only thing I can think of to explain why Trump is so adamant on “removing” certain nationalities is the color of their skin, but he assures us he is NOT a racist. I wouldn’t advise taking that statement to the bank to cash given that he’s already clocked between 11,000 and 12,000 lies to date (I’ve lost count) and I’m sure one more isn’t going to bother him one little bit.

      • Rayne says:

        Agree entirely about the 96% = ‘full employment’. Around 4-5% is the rate of attrition, people moving in and out of jobs and the workforce.

        We’re not at full employment uniformly across all groups in all locations. But that doesn’t matter to employers who aren’t mobile; they hire more mobile undocumented personnel.

        I do wonder how accurate employment figures are; I thought they’d been tweaked during the Bush administration. But I agree that we are in need of more workers, especially those willing to do seasonal work. Not certain how we go about developing a guest worker program which offers adequate protections in the workplace without damaging opportunities for citizens at the lowest decile of compensation.

        • Rugger9 says:

          Not only that, but one is considered to be employed with a part time drudge job like Uber that cannot pay for a household’s expenses on its own. Plus, those who have given up seeking employment do not count against the rate.

          Your spidey-sense about tweaking the definition is spot on, I don’t recall which GOP administration it was (I know Reagan redefined the poverty level) but the step reduction in the rate was the true purpose of the re-definition.

        • Democritus says:

          Trumps now retired Econ guy was talking about shifting a couple measures, but I’m not sure if they ever did do that. Maybe it was by playing around with the time value of money, like they want to do with capital gains rates to effectively give another tax cut to their donors. They’ve been talking about that for a while now, but it seems like they are pushing harder of late.

          Racism doesn’t always pay for itself you know /s (not that I’m bitter or anything)

          Of course with all too many job snow a days the wages don’t pay enough because wages haven’t budged really since the 70s for most people when accounting for inflation.

          Hell Since 1980, The average pretax income of the top tenth of Americans has doubled, the top 1% has tripled, and the top .001% has risen SEVENFOLD.

          The bottom half has been almost static..

          Rich American men live FIFTEEN YEARS long than poor American men.

          All stats from page 4 of Winner Take All by Anand G

          You should also be able to double check all figures on the look inside of the hardcover edition on Amazon:

          [https://www.amazon.com/Winners-Take-All-Charade-Changing/dp/0451493249]

          Not sure if that link is ok but citation.

    • Rayne says:

      Yeah, I’d seen that. Many companies should be looking at shielding their facilities, turning them into massive Faraday cages. We’re wide open under this administration.

      • Democritus says:

        Yeah, I figured she probably knows far more than I do given her expertise but that woke me the fuck up.

        Just FFS. How at risk are our secrets, that’s one thing that keeps me up. I can’t believe how much I’m hoping the CIA is doing extra super secret squirrel shit.

  3. P J Evans says:

    PH Food Inc:
    Directors / Officers
    JIMMY Liang, secretary
    Rachel Liang-Tan, incorporator
    Yan Jun Liang, agent
    Yan Jun Liang, director
    Yan Jun Liang, president
    Yan Jun Liang, treasurer

    It’s a very small company, apparently: three trucks and 5 to 10 employees, from what I can find.

    • Rayne says:

      This is a tough one. Rachel Liang-Tan may be a corporation, not just a person. My gut says this is a Taiwanese entity but I can’t tell.

      Damn it, I am not getting this errand run and it’s nearly 10 pm.

      • Democritus says:

        CPA in walnut California? Don’t want to link on people I’m probably wrong about though. Never mind, that’s not gonna be it can you delete this? Sorry!

  4. P J Evans says:

    “MP Food” is another very small business – the manager is Latinx, but it may be Chinese-owned. Very little other information available.

    “Pearl River Foods Inc” is also Chinese-owned.

    • Rayne says:

      This is where it gets dicey. Might have a Chinese name but the owner could be a Taiwanese or other Asian with Chinese name. Many people of Singaporean, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino, Indonesian have names that may also be Chinese — like Lee/Li, Chau/Chow. And names can vary by dialect — like Chang (Mandarin), Cheung (HK Cantonese), Chong (Hakka).

      That brings up another issue: is Trump targeting China (PRC) or is he making a conciliatory gesture by targeting Taiwanese or Hong Kongese business owners here? Everything is transactional with Trump, after all.

      • P J Evans says:

        I doubt that he cares what the actual nationality is. Or whoever is pushing this stuff at him.
        Pearl River is associated with a David Yang. It appears there are a fair number of Asian-ancestry people in Mississippi. (In fact, I remember a young engineer of Chinese ancestry who my father worked with; my parents went to his wedding and the banquet afterward, and the bride’s family was from Mississippi; they remarked that hearing Chinese with a Southern accent is really odd. That was back in the 70s.)

        • Rayne says:

          Chinese as in People’s Republic of China (PRC), or Chinese as in Republic of China (ROC, otherwise known as Taiwan)? The name Yang is common in both countries; Presidential candidate Andrew Yang is Taiwanese-American. The overwhelming majority of Americans never think about the distinction or know anything about the serious friction between PRC and ROC.

          I would be very cautious saying Trump doesn’t care about actual nationality. He cares deeply when it’s worth money to him personally.

        • Democritus says:

          After the brouhaha with the call with Taiwan’s President at the start of his term… one China and all.

      • Stephen says:

        My opinions on this site are genuinely humble and open to correction, but I find it hard to credit DT with that level of attention to detail. This is a guy who can’t handle a 2-page daily briefing. That said, somebody in the ICE hierarchy may be targeting businesses owned by people with non-European names.

  5. P J Evans says:

    That I don’t know, but probably Taiwan. It’s really hard to tell without asking. I’ve met Chinese from Taiwan, from the PRC, and from Singapore. (My parents rented a room one year to a college student who was Chinese-ancestry from Panama.)

      • Democritus says:

        Yeah, I just went and saw it had already been retweeted before I even saw it and came back here hoping I was still in edit time to be like never mind…

        One day I will be quick enough to be helpful! ;)

  7. bmaz says:

    Interesting that with all of this probable cause for such a raid and whatnot, that only the indigent workers seem to have been arrested (unless I missed something), but none of the owners and/or operators of the facility. Go figure.

    • Rayne says:

      I don’t know that we won’t. It may also depend on who’s around to prosecute. Given how many jobs have gone unfilled in departments and agencies Trump doesn’t respect, is it possible there’s no one left to go after employers who hire undocumented employees?

      Seriously, though — why would he fill a job with someone who might come after his own company’s managers?

      • AMG says:

        > Seriously, though — why would he fill a job with
        > someone who might come after his own company’s
        > managers?

        it’s “why wouldn’t he fill a job with someone that would protect his own company’s managers?”

        i wonder how many appointments trump has made to specifically protect himself? richard beckler at GSA was an early example (too bad he got sick and died and left the barn doors open). barr? kavanaugh? mnuchin?

        trump sure does love his loyalty oaths, but i guess that’s what keeps his military strong and his country the greatest.

        • Rayne says:

          Let’s not forget his bullshit with the Fed Reserve. As long as rates are kept down he’s not paying as much on his loans and keeping more profit.

        • Greg F says:

          Ding! That was my thinking too, Rayne. I also am thinking the whole Rod Blagojevich sentence commutation blowby was for Trump and Sons, plus Javanka’s, far-flung hopes for a future Republican presidential pardon by Mike Pence. It only makes sense to Donald Trump and Jared, of course.

          I hope they let Blagojevich rot in prison. Plus, they would break up his “band of prisoners”: Rod & The Sporks! (My weird little comedic fantasy, not Real News). Ha!

        • bmaz says:

          You understand that Blago’s sentence of 14 years was ridiculously excessive relative to his overcharged and logrolled convictions, right? It bordered on insane. Trump’s motives are undoubtedly shit, but there is nothing wrong with commuting Blago’s sentence and sending him home.

        • Greg F says:

          Hi bmaz. No, I did not know that there was any controversy about his ‘selling’ of Obama’s Senate seat at the time. In the light of the current regime’s corruption, Blagojevich’s offense seems trivial these days, but I was very incensed about his purported lack of integrity by my original news feed. I would like to know the truth. Thanks for bringing up another view.

  8. Eureka says:

    Since you made a dedicated post (and comments are entertaining country of ownership of the plants) I’ll move this over here to add among the factors that I don’t see how Perdue being in the chicken (agri) business has nothing to do with this:

    Eureka says:
    August 7, 2019 at 8:54 pm

    Well the first thing I thought of when I saw ‘poultry producer’ was ‘Perdue competitor?’. Besides the USDA being a fiefdom, cross-oligarchagency “projects” would not be unheard of.

    Adding: and for the same reasons, I would expect that at the very least, any such raids would _avoid_ certain oligarchs’ domains, to the extent such is possible

    And: word-choice alert: I prob should have stricken ‘agency’ and left ‘oligarch.’

    Trump’s transactionalism prizes loyalists / birds, stone

    I would also have no doubt that Perdue, like other corps/owners, has had thick competitor dox in hand.

    Who knows if that had any role in the selection of these ICE targets.

    • harpie says:

      Speaking of Perdue:
      https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1159434082796724224
      5:00 AM – 8 Aug 2019

      Farmers’ discontent over Trump’s trade war with China erupted as his Agriculture Secretary was confronted at a rural fair by the president of the Minnesota Farmers Union, who hit the trade dispute’s “devastating damage” in front of Secretary Sonny Perdue. [Links to Bloomberg]

      Bwahahahaha!

      #RIPGOP

      • Eureka says:

        *wikipedia.com/#RIPGOP:

        The Great Fair Uprisings of 2019 [Section] [edit]
        By the summer of 2019, farmers had had enough. Following an incident [1,309] in rural Minnesota [1,310], Wayne Lapierre convened figurehead Trump’s cabinet at his Texas fortress [citation needed].

        The farmers, however, would not be stilled. In rural brooks throughout the country, fair season provided an opportunity for public accountings of the GOP’s policy assaults on the heartland [too many citations needed].

        [snip]
        …
        References
        …
        1,309. Not High on the Hog: Farmers Raise Pitchforks to Trump’s Ag Sec over Tariffs (August 8, 2019)
        1,310. ^ d,z, aa, gg,: GOP Agent Paul Manafort sold Minnesota to Russian Intelligence Operatives During Trump Campaign (2019)

        *”url” redirects to emptywheel dot com…

        • Eureka says:

          *.org, fuckballs: had the gag right in the first version before I had to retype.
          –

          PJ– maybe we can snark it into existence. Or better, the “displaced”-by-many-methods USDA scientists can go on tour with the suppressed research that helps farmers adapt practices to climate change. Steyer (I don’t mind helping him devise better ways to spend his money) should sponsor booths at state & county fairs all across the country. The guess-your-age carnie could instead host a “guess the percent nutrient drop in your preferred crop” game. Pick an issue vital to farmers, multiply by ignoring-climate-change-years, and GO!

  11. American Abroad says:

    Again, watching this from afar, I feel the country is hitting the tipping point. What appears to be calculated raids; the loathsome, hateful language spit from Individual-1 and the loyalists who follow him, the de-funding of programs to protect citizens, rollbacks of regulations aimed at hurting the most vulnerable of the population are directed towards a specific outcome. For the past three years, this group of wannabe fascists has had little to stop them – a resistance playing by outdated rules, rules in a different game. And now………

    Am I wrong to think this is the tipping point? Once the accurate language has been unleashed and disseminated by the resistance (of which I am a proud and vocal member), how can you turn back? This IS the fight. This is good versus evil – this is which side are you on. This is I will not look away – not this time – you have just loaded that last straw. ENOUGH! Enough cruelty has been done in my name, in my country’s name and I condemn it. I denounce the party of hate

    • Vicks says:

      I do not intend to sound snarky but..
      Where the hell have you been?
      There is no “tipping point”
      The Trump admin (coached by the likes of Putin and Steve Bannon) has spent two plus years grooming and then testing how low some of our fellow Americans are willing to go to be part of this “movement”.
      To paraphrase the candidate Maryann Williamson there is a “dark and evil force at work.” and the folks that are part of this “force” aren’t going to wake up one morning, check out the scandal of the day, and decide to be born again.
      IMHO the best we can do is cut off their energy supply, kick them when they are down and force them to go back to where they came from and never ever forget what ALMOST happened to our country.
      They are trying to instill fear, discourse and divide and while it’s only natural, when we respond with righteous bitching and lecturing (to each other mostly) about morality it just eggs them on (energy supply) because it confirms they hit their mark.
      The most powerful things I have seen in a long time are the protests in Puerto Rico, and the green shirt guy who’s laughter was pure and and unexpected kryptonite to a couple of yahoo’s trying to stir shit up.

      • Troutwaxer says:

        I don’t think you’ll get very far calling it fascism, regardless of what it is. In sellable political terms, I’d simply call it failure. Call Trump’s presidency “The failure Presidency” and call Trump “The President of Failure.” Put a red, white and blue bumper sticker on your car which reads “Vote for Trump, Go to Fail.”

        Nobody likes failure.

      • American abroad says:

        No, I don’t think it sounds snarky at all. My question about tipping point is about those of us resisting this campaign of hate and cruelty. Have we (elected officials included) finally reached the breaking point as to how to combat this evil? As I view this from half way around the world from the US, something FINALLY sounds different to me.

        • Vicks says:

          Got it. Thanks for clarifying.
          I think we all sat on our asses thinking that as soon as the “truth” came out once decent people in this country would come to their senses and we would all run Trump out of the White House together.
          While we were fantasizing about how we were going to control our smugness when Trump supporters were forced to admit they were wrong, Trump was building his power.
          I am curious to learn more about what you think is different?
          Do you think it’s fear?

        • American Abroad says:

          I do think some of it is fear. Fear of the not to distant future if something monumental does not change. But upon some self-reflection, maybe it’s just me projecting my hope that something HAS to change. Maybe it’s the fact that there are Democratic candidates calling it out in VERY SPECIFIC language.

          I know there has been a resistance to Individual-1 since he announced his campaign of hate back in 2015, but I truly feel as if there has been a shift.

          As I have said before, my vantage point is from another country; I have been here since 2012 and I was welcomed warmly and unconditionally into my community. I was visiting family back in the U.S. this past June and I was distraught. Distraught over so many atrocities, but specifically, the latest information about the heinous acts happening at the border….STILL! I was in the U.S. in 2018 when this particularly disgusting crime of hate first appeared in the MSM, and it was still happening in our name. I went to protests, bringing my elderly parents with me. I write, I email, I donate to progressive candidates and causes, I call my representatives every chance I get. I do what I can from where I am.

          This sense of something changing, this being a tipping point is colored by the one very prominent question in my mind: Is this the country I want/can return to?

          Thank you for engaging with me and pushing me to articulate the thoughts swirling in my head.

    • NorskieFlamethrower says:

      Thank you. I wish I could articulate the simple reality of all this as well as you do. There is no middle ground and hasn’t been for 57 years. The rhetorical rationalizations for political compromise with evil have now caught up with the neo-liberals like Joe “tell me it ain’t so” Biden. Wiemar Germany was split 1/3 to 1/3 with 1/3 in the middle allowing the Nazis to take and consolidate power. But the US is a much larger country and the “middle 1/3” of this country is not comin’ down with the bad guys.

  12. may says:

    “America will do the right thing after it’s tried everything else”

    what’s taking so long?

    good people on both sides, my arse!

    you are being goebbelised.

  13. Eureka says:

    Local reporter’s thread:

    Ashton Pittman: “At a Mississippi school, the children and family members of immigrants plucked out of their workplaces by federal agents in today’s historic #ICEraids weep, unsure when or if they’ll see their loved ones again. Their back to school week. Shared with permission from Miriam Sanchez…”
    [https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/1159250833353170950]

    Immigration law guy’s recent-decades historical thread: he ends with a note and link on violent crime in communities with meat processing plants, which impressed me further:

    Matt Cameron 🗽: “1/ Today ICE conducted the largest workplace mass arrest in the history of US immigration enforcement. More than 600 immigrants were arrested and detained. Exactly zero employers were charged. A lot of context to this one! Here’s some of it #ICERaids …”
    [https://twitter.com/matt_cam/status/1159299010051678210]

    • Democritus says:

      I got choked up watching the video with the little girl in the pink crying, and lost it when I noticed that another even younger child looked lost a little scared and like she didn’t understand why the older girl was so upset.

      The the other young girl in red is just in shock. The let’s start calling out the naked cruelty and incompetence of these assholes in MORAL terms. There is NO excuse. Those kids should have been accounted for.

      • Tom says:

        Last night (Thursday) Lawrence O’Donnell described what happened in Mississippi as Trump’s “torture” of children, using the word repeatedly and citing how Trump’s actions met the legal definition of mental torture and were directed at children. He also emphasized the long-term harm done to these children, even those whose parents have been released by ICE.

  15. earlofhuntingdon says:

    I think your Hinky Meter is working fine. From the May 30, 2019 AP article:

    The provision, which remains in force to this day, says candidates must win not only a majority of the popular vote — that is, more than 50% — but also a majority of the state’s 122 House districts. [https://www.apnews.com/3ad297610e314e4a863ebb521b98efd0]

    Do the math about how little it takes to keep an African American from statewide office.

    These workers are among the most vulnerable, but when it comes to Stephen Miller time, the more cruelty, the better. They were uppity enough to complain about some of the worst working conditions in the country – and join a union to improve them. A worker in the South could not commit a more grievous sin.

    Never let a serious crisis go to waste (h/t P. Mirowski). As Rayne says, large, narrowly targeted raids take a lot of planning and set-up time. It looks as if this one was put on the shelf to take down when needed: to distract from worse news, to punish the owners, to bring out the white vote near the election, to intimidate a specific workforce.

    The last reason seems the most likely here. It would decourager les autres travailleurs from attempting to stand up for themselves. Doing so is a mortal sin against any employer. But the South has built its entire economy around eliminating such uppitiness, and has sold that as its most attractive feature to corporations worldwide. That the owners were not arrested supports this. Their legal obligations are clear and they intentionally violated them.

    This raid also seems to have done little damage to the employers, and none at all to their competitors. And it shakes the boots of that new uppity DA. So, no harm then. Not.

    • Democritus says:

      Fuck motherfucking yes.

      And fuck those fucking fuckheads and their fucking uptiness, but I agree that exactly what it is.

      I literally as a preteen at me point I one point jump out of a , albeit pretty damn slowly moving, car because someone was mad I told them to stop using racist language and then didn’t. I have seen these assholes since I was a little kid with no tolerance for hate, and was really stubborn in the way aspie’s are. (For people not familiar many on the spectrum some have TOO MUCH empathy which is why we sometimes Kirk out because some of us we can sense almost everything and then really feel it too)

      While I eventually changed that person mind, we no longer talk because they were still shitty when not a racist too.

      I also think a sizable portion of the people who are hard core racist are scared little bitches who are so afraid of PoC that they need to control all. And so even once you can get them less racist through talk, empathy, knowledge, you still have usually either a fearful or angry person.

      Though, when those are combined like in El Paso, a scared angry person, it’s exceptionally dangerous. Trump keeps whipping up that fear to help himself get elected it will continue to encourage upon the minds of the angry racists and make 5hem more dangerous. We need to spread the definition of stochastic terrorism and work to make trumps dehumanizing language unacceptable.

      • rip says:

        What a wonderful personal and universal account. I think you have enunciated what a lot of us feel without being labeled on some scale or another. We all live on a whole set of spectrums (spectra), not just some DSM-convenient label. Different things make us all react in different ways.

        Unfortunately, triggers depend on individual environments at the time. It is impossible to quantify these to LEO or society (who have their own unquantifiable triggers.)

  16. Democritus says:

    This, this, this.The more media who hear this the better. People aren’t stupid they started getting worried when Trump was elected. Then they started worrying more when he started his heat rallies up again.

    Now, for many people of color and other targeted minorities, this is almost been like a second 9/11. I imagine it’s especially so for the people who put those fears in their back pocket and tried to deny them, for their own mental health or just denial, and those people have now had all those fears rear back up and slap them around the head. Its a reasonable fear, and the GOP naked racist language has been amping the situation terribly. Plus for years now Russian trolls, I fear in coordination with the GOP, who have been deliberately provoking and inciting hatred between minorities as everyone else they can too.

    Maria Hinojosa @Maria_Hinojosa

    “I ask this question w/love to my fellow journalists who are white men or women. Have you ever had a situation where your mother is afraid to walk outside bc of her race/ethnicity? This is what it feels like to be a Latina immigrant journalist in the United States today.”

    https://twitter.com/Maria_Hinojosa/status/1159453085384749056

    Also It’s not like we want warned and there is an a Wikipedia article up on the fucking strategy they’ve been teaching in their fucking military schools for decades now

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

    “The book emphasizes that Russia must spread Anti-Americanism everywhere: “the main ‘scapegoat’ will be precisely the U.S.”

    In the United States:

    Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke “Afro-American racists”. Russia should “introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics”.[9]”

    • klynn says:

      Yep. This is their game strategy.

      Trump is tasked with destroying: our economy, our global stance on human rights, our historical role at the UN and civility in our nation. If he can destabilize us, he’ll take Alaska and more. If Britain tanks with Brexit, he might even try and take Canada.

  17. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Trump needs him some more love. He’s considering commuting former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich’s sentence. In 2009, Blagojevich was impeached, removed from office, convicted of bribery and political corruption, and sentenced to fourteen years imprisonment. Trump likes to take care of those whose behavior is most like his own.

    [https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/1159321381378711554]
    [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Blagojevich]

    • Vicks says:

      No mystery there, it’s just another Obama burn with a bonus lift of the leg to Chicago
      It appears the child is learning to self soothe….

  18. Bay State Librul says:

    WWDTOBITLL (What will Donald Trump’s Obituary Look Like)

    Openings and Closings:

    It’s hard to imagine that Rosie Ruiz conned the Boston Marathon 39 years ago.
    It took officials only a few days to determine that she started the Marathon in Hopkinton, and took a 16-Mile T Ride to finish the race. She died recently at 66 years of age.

    Today, our President spews racist language and Republicans will take years to admit the obvious. It’s all on tape and in real time. What the fuck is wrong with our nation?

    Author Jean Rhys’s opening in her book Wide Sargasso Sea says it best. “They say when trouble comes, close ranks, and so the white people did.”

    We in trouble, and need a state-wide protest march.

    • Democritus says:

      Agree, we need some show of community. Sigh. I wish I wasn’t stuck lying down pretty much all day every day. Usually when shit like this happens you can do something and keep doing that until the anger and fear subside.

      Ffs:

      Trump, meeting with victims and medical staff in El Paso yesterday, referred to “crazy Beto”—who is from El Paso—and bragged about his crowd sizes at his rally in the city in February. “You had this crazy Beto. Beto had like 400 people in a parking lot.”

      They are trying to collect vid from El Paso, good! Seriously as soon as they found out they were going to close press people in El Paso should’ve been sneaking extra cameras into that fucking hospital.

      https://mobile.twitter.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1159469870758727682

      Fucking makes me sick all his praise of everyone in the world is seeing you there I’ll print out it’s only the shit he wants to hear and the only shit he thinks people want to hear after their loved ones have been injured is that people all over the world are watching that’s not what people want people want to know their loved ones will be safe.

      Used dictation sorry if that last part shit

      • P J Evans says:

        His two visits were all about *him*, with just pro-forma statements about the victims and their families. The photos are all him and white people. We know that most of the injured – and a lot of the hospital staff – won’t be white. Setups.

        • Rayne says:

          There’s disinformation running rampant across the internet; I’m waiting validation on a claim that the tangerine twatwaffle insisted everyone in the hospital sign NDAs and then used the visits for campaign ad footage.

        • bmaz says:

          Well, we do know that the Trump team shot stills and video and that the press was excluded, so the only video is Trump’s.

          I’d be shocked if the NDA thing is true, that would be bonkers. But you never know with these clucks.

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          No verification of the shots or checks on how they were edited? I’m shocked that this White House would stoop so low. The, this is not for political or campaign purposes line was delivered so well, one or two people might have believed it.

          Are there conditions where the press call, bullshit, and refuse to play along? With this arrangement, there was no need for anyone of them to be there.

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          Patients refusing to be photographed or have their names disclosed is another matter. It’s their right. I would have refused a visit from anyone not family or friends. There is, too, the issue that a hospital can’t have cameras capturing everything in a hallway or room. it would result in massive HIPPA violations.

          My comment was about what was photographed and used in promo shots for el Presidente. People either gave permission or Trump’s people said fuck it, we don’t need no stinkin’ permission.

        • Rayne says:

          You know what convinces me there were NDAs? The silence. 24 hours after his visit there’s nothing from the hospitals save for Dayton hospital president — nothing from employees, patients, parents, other family members, friends. Nada.

        • Rayne says:

          That’s at odds with JDawsey’s tweet: Aides had blocked cameras due to privacy.

          Still no word from family/friends/patients directly.

        • bmaz says:

          Also, too, go see my most recent tweet. Hospital spokesman says that not only did the eight remaining patients refuse to meet with Trump, to get any “victim” for Trump to see, they had to haul back to the hospital the injured baby who had both parents slain, and was in the care of his grandparents. Yeah, it was that bad and sick

        • harpie says:

          I’m having a difficult time following all the posts today…maybe you’ve seen this already [from last night]?
          https://twitter.com/CBS4Local/status/1159306347114110976
          8:32 PM – 7 Aug 2019
          [quote] This is viewer video of President @realDonaldTrump and
          @FLOTUS at @umcelpaso meeting with victims and medical staff.
          Send us any photos/videos of president Trump’s visit to #ElPaso and we may show it on TV. Upload here [link] [end quote]

        • harpie says:

          More about the cameras:
          southpaw Retweeted https://twitter.com/jdawsey1/status/1159535208154193921
          11:41 AM – 8 Aug 2019

          Trump was upset with aides on Air Force One that news cameras were not with him in hospital and TV was dominated by his critics while he was not getting credit for hospital visits. He wanted footage released ASAP. Aides had blocked cameras due to privacy. [WaPo]

        • P J Evans says:

          I swear a lot at him and his associates-in-misrule. If I’m going to throw things, I’m going to have to make some nice soft throw toys.

        • Tom says:

          According to Maggie Haberman, shown in a brief clip on Nicolle Wallace’s “Deadline: White House” yesterday, White House staff are admitting Trump’s hospital visits were “a debacle”.

        • Mooser says:

          In the picture I saw, the “hospital staff” were fucking petting Trump, and all had big smiles. Hospital staff with time to do pub shots, and smiling in the midst of the tragedy which is still playing out at the hospital. You would think hospital staff would know better. Hmmmm…

        • P J Evans says:

          I read that in Dayton, if not also in El Paso, they brought in people from other departments and even other hospitals for the photos. Which means that yeah, they set it up beforehand and need to be called out.

      • Democritus says:

        Final version:

        We must not succumb to the division and hatred they are trying to sow. We must stand together united against hate. It is all the same hate imo, hatred of the other.

        Whether against Muslims, Jews, Blacks, Latinos, gays, trans, and even non-subservient women. Maybe a March for Unity, or a March Against Hate? With signup booths for activist groups like ADL, ACLU, BLM, HRC, and any other group targeted by hate.

        This should not stand, we must show up those of us who stand AGAINST hate. We must stand and be counted.

        We must do SOMETHING to stop this traitor, and his party of hatred of the stranger, from destroying our Democracy. Right now we don’t even know if our votes will be fairly counted in 2020 given every states elections systems have been hacked to varying degrees of success.

        In the meantime call your representative in Congress, donate to RAICES, ACLU and other civic orgs, subscribe to your local and good national papers like the Post. Help people register to vote like here:

        (https://twitter.com/DrSCubed/status/1151668319960702977)

        Also spend some time talking to people you normally wouldn’t, look up from your phone and engage with your fellow citizens. Lots of us are afraid, and one of the biggest weapons of authoritarianism is to use that fear to keep people silent.

        Just like during the AIDS crisis, and my childhood friend contracted that also, we are back here again:

        SILENCE EQUALS DEATH

        Silence =Death

        (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silence%3DDeath_Project)

    • Winslow2 says:

      I often wonder what the Trump Presidential Library will look like; if he’s not impeached, he’ll have one. Insult to injury.

    • Mooser says:

      WWDTPLLL? (What Will Donald Trump’s Presidential Library Be Like?)

      I think it will be a trip through a long dark tunnel, with animatronic Trumps glaring and tweets blaring. Which you run and stumble through while a golf cart tries to run you down.

      • may says:

        did anybody notice the book given to him in England

        the lady handing it to him was a child when the books subject matter was happening.

        • r helder says:

          queen elizabeth is not without a little snark: she gave trump an artisan fountain pen (when the world knows he only uses sharpies); she gave him a book (when the world knows he can barely read); she wore the burmese-ruby crown (associated with warding off evil or disease); and buck house was being redecorated, so no room for trump.

  20. OldTulsaDude says:

    I just heard a teaser on a news program about the ICE raids. It strikes me that if the goal is to generate publicity for the president “keeping his promises” that the best way to do that would be with a cooperating business whose ownership has replacement workers ready and waiting to take over so the business itself is not damaged. Where better to find a cooperating business than a deeply red state?

    I would watch to see how well and how soon this business replaces its workers for a sign of hinky-ness.

  21. Democritus says:

    You know the guy who fractured a little boys skull for not being sufficiently patriotic for the anthem, because he thought Trump would want him too?

    “What this particular article fails to say is that, despite this guy throwing this kid’s head into the cement floor and fracturing his skull and prosecutors requesting $100K bail, the judge released him on his own recognizance. TF is wrong with some judges these days?”
    https://twitter.com/lindbeda/status/1159471916635348992

    Reply to:

    https://twitter.com/AdamSerwer/status/1159469333669658624

    WAKE UP AMERICA

    • bmaz says:

      Uh, if the court is sufficiently convinced that the defendant has strong ties to the community and will show up for all court appearances, he SHOULD release on own recognizance. Bail is not supposed to be punishment, it should only be about making sure the defendant appears for court hearings and/or trial. If there were no such concerns here OR is indeed appropriate.

      • Democritus says:

        Yeah, I’m in an emotional place, it’s why I added m usually in favor of bail.

        But what about the safety risk, not flight but the risk of him attacking someone else because he thought trump wanted him too.

        (Last part here shouldn’t be included in his court stuff, but as general public policy point/an aside, he looks to be in his early twenties which is the age schizophrenia manifests. Which may have had something to do With Dayton shooting, his ex reported he heard voices. If no one else say that interview I can go get a citation. Sherrod Browns bringing up of Medicaid for mental health services with Trump yesterday was more important than I think most realize.

        FWIW psych was my first major, and Ive known people with serious mental illness like DiD. Though this guy is probably totally sane, most hateful killers are. )

        I’m more concerned with ongoing threat to community, not that he will bail. Isn’t that an issue, or do they secure them with other methods l8ke ankle bracelets?

        Anyway, Thanks for piping in bmaz :)

        I prefer to be challenged, if nicely because I can be sensitive. How else do people tighten arguments and learn?

      • SomeGuyInMaine says:

        I get that bail should not be punitive. There is a danger to the community standard too, right? (IANAL). In this case, the suspect:
        • is a felon with a prior conviction for pulling a gun on family and threatening to kill them
        • acknowledged he has a brain injury that impairs his judgment
        • acknowledged that injury was a factor in the acts leading to his prior conviction
        • claimed (in the press at least) the brain injury contributed to his recent violent act and he didn’t think it was a crime.

        I guess the judge has believes he not a danger to the community, based on his successful 7 years of probation. Considering he got early release from his 10 year probation just months ago (February), this seems on the shaky side to me for OR. I’ll stop second guessing judges now.

        • Tom says:

          And would he not have conditions requiring him to have no contact with his victim, follow any treatment regime he may be under, avoid drugs and/or alcohol if they were a contributing factor to the offense, stay at a specific address, keep the peace and be of good behavior, and anything else that seemed applicable to his particular situation? And might not the police carry out spot-checks on him as well?

        • bmaz says:

          Yes, those are all standard release conditions on every case, except maybe the spot checks by police. More likely he would be ordered to report regularly to a pre-trial services department.

        • e.a.f. says:

          don’t get why americans are so big on bail. bail is to ensure people show up for trial. if they guy, regardless of what he has done, is going to show up for trial, why make him pay bail. Part of the problem in the U.S.A. is the prisons are over crowded and making money for corporations and corrupt officials. Why contribute to it?

          Did any one think this man, has mental health problems?

      • BobCon says:

        The case sounds complicated. The attacker was discharged from the military after suffering traumatic brain injury. He was convicted in a case where he pulled a gun on a family member, but eventually had his sentence reduced by three years for good behavior.

        I’m sure this just a partial background, so it’s hard to say how to judge it. I will say, though, this is the second well written article I’ve seen from The Missoulian in the past couple of months. Maybe the NY Times could take some notes.

        https://missoulian.com/news/local/superior-man-believed-he-was-acting-on-trump-s-orders/article_4842efed-7f34-5855-81fb-92ad2dc0c64f.html

        • bmaz says:

          Frankly, before your and SomeGuyInMaine’s accounts I really did not know the underlying facts on his prior and brain injury. It does sound complicated. And release may get reconsidered now that it is moved to a higher court. We shall see. I do try to pushback on claims that bail ought have some relation to the offense necessarily.

        • Democritus says:

          Unfortunately I have had multiple times people close to me/relatives have suffered TBI’s.

          That lack of impulse control is very real and very scary.

          Also this guy should be getting much better healthcare if his injury was a wartime wound, which it sounds like and there were just so fucking many TBI’s from all the IEDs. And we have NOT taken care of our warfighters at all, but that’s a whole other rant.

        • Mooser says:

          I believe the head injury was from a non-service connected auto accident which took place while he was in the military.

    • P J Evans says:

      It’s a county with a fairly small population. so a lot of people will know him. But whether they’ll report him if he tries to run, is another question.

    • Vicks says:

      From what I have previously read it sounds like the guy was not fully functioning mentally, he had been in an accident and had brain damage. When his lawyer said he thought he was doing it at Trump’s request, he meant it literally, the part of the brain that processes that sort of information is damaged.
      I have a special place in my heart for those folks, however he proved he was a (serious) danger to others, and I would think there would be some additional terms to his release that we aren’t getting from the twitter.

  22. Democritus says:

    Another hate crime, no one physically hurt. (Though the cortisol flooding their system would have physically effected them and their health. That physical side effect is too often ignored)

    “Unity Over Racism!
    Quote Tweet

    David Beard @dabeard
    · 14m
    Charged with a hate crime: Man, yelling racial slurs, firing air rifle at African-American man and a Hispanic woman who were talking in their driveway”

    https://twitter.com/soledadobrien/status/1159476144577679360

    So should we start a separate thread to track this burst of hate crimes? /s

    Would this make the list? I’m glad these young men are bravely coming forward.

    “48 male patients say a USC campus doctor, Dennis Kelly, sexually abused them — and the University was warned.

    (link: http://www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2019/08/08/48-male-patients-say-campus-doctor-sexually-abused-them-and-usc-was-warned/) uscannenbergmedia.com/2019/08/08/48-…

    (link: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/sashaurban/usc-doctor-sexual-abuse-dennis-kelly)”

    O’Brien also has a interesting thread with responses on the legally safer, but wish washy language our press is using

    https://mobile.twitter.com/soledadobrien/status/1159462212802686976

    • Rayne says:

      Southern Poverty Law Center is dedicated to monitoring hate crimes. Let’s let them do it. They’re a nonprofit and could use donations, by the way.

    • Tom says:

      Re: language use — This may sound pedantically pettifogging, but it irks me to hear people to use the terms “injured” and “wounded” interchangeably when describing these mass shootings. Injured is a broad description and implies accidental physical harm caused by means of a non-lethal object. Wounded, on the other hand, refers to bodily harm caused by a weapon of some sort with the added implication that someone intentionally tried to hurt or kill another person. At least, that’s the distinction those terms hold for me.

  23. Democritus says:

    Fuck it, I’m going back to commenting on some larger sites too, spouse asked me to stop after we started getting weird intl calls, but courage isn’t the lack of fear and I’m afraid for my spouses life so…

    Anyway off to post this around, any edits or suggestions welcome. I fucking love reading, but always had a hard time writing because I like to be too precise so everything ends up too long. Instead I have to get mad and write like I talk.

    White people, fellow white people every time you hear another white person saying those dog whistles, those racist code words we all know about- or even that out right racist language, and you decide that, you know God forbid I dare talk back to them, God forbid that I have to face their anger.

    What you are doing is leaving that hatred there for the next minority they run into when they’re having a bad day to take it on the chin.

    STOP.

    Courage isn’t a lack of fear. Courage is doing the right thing IN SPITE of the fear.

    • Democritus says:

      Maybe drop the god forbids, and act more understanding of having the racist ange4 directed to you, but point out as a white person you are safer arguing it and have a moral duty to do so?

      Target audience is the white people who would sit back and let people spill that bs without calling it out. The ladies who “don’t do politics” etc.

    • Rayne says:

      The weird international calls have nothing to do with what you’re posting on blogs so long as you’re posting pseudonymously and taking adequate precautions about your IP address. Everybody with a phone number is getting bizarre calls, domestic and international.

      I think the coded language is what many well-intentioned people miss, allowing racism to slip by them. Some of it hasn’t changed since Lee Atwater spelled it out in 1981:

      You start out in 1954 by saying, “N*gger, n*gger, n*gger.” By 1968 you can’t say “n*gger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N*gger, n*gger.”

      The Trump Tax Cut? All the n-word, completely unchanged since before 1981.

      Every media outlet story on “economic anxiety” in rural white America? Same — every story sought racist voters’ explanation for their racist votes but it was labeled “economic anxiety.” Well-meaning white folks need to try harder because it’s right there under their noses.

      • Democritus says:

        Ohhhh yeah, that quote is also one I post ( n word edited) also.

        My thing was economics, pointing out the BS like you do above- the reality of racism, and the big gaping links that lots of corporate media leave out and to preach against hate. I also liked to point out trolls, the false rhetorical techniques, fact check etc.

        Basically I like to disturb that mirage, the bs narrative that far too many mostly white people STILL are telling themselves to make themselves feel falsely safe, or better, or in control. Sometime though, those things are saying that the Cold War never ended, and we surely did NOT win.

        I think I’m good on my IP addy, but I’m not too technical. Honestly though, I pretty damn sure I’m not important enough, and I doubt I was effective enough for anyone to care. A few hundred likes on comments does not a star make, and I’m mostly commenting on normal msm sites. I’m not doing any crazy research on odd sites or whatnot.

        FWIW I agree with you, and am pretty damn sure the calls werent anything other than normal scam calls, but spousal unit was NOT amused. Though permission was finally granted so I don’t just implode into a one super compressed rock hard stressball because I’m just stuck on my ass far too much, and my brain thinks far too fast. Sigh. Someone said I’m like a smart poodle cooped in a small apartment since becoming disabled.

        Anyway wanted to say sorry for flooding so much shit here the last couple days. You just got back from your stuff and then every five minutes *bing new comment* I bet, sorry too much *ahem* brownies, stress, and whatnot. I’m gonna read the rest and not post for a bit.

  24. lady sativa says:

    This company is so corrupt, it needs to be shut down NOW!!!!!

    Racial discrimination against farmers:
    Koch has been accused of discriminating against black contract farmers and retaliating against those that spoke out. From 2009 to 2015 the company went from having contracts with four black farmers in Mississippi to having none. USDA investigators found “evidence of unjust discrimination” against black farmers by Koch.

    U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit
    In 2012 the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission brought a class employment discrimination lawsuit against Koch alleging harassment of workers and discrimination based on national origin and race at Koch’s Morton, Mississippi plant. The lawsuit alleged that workers were “subjected to touching and sexually suggestive comments, were hit, were charged money for normal everyday work activities” among other things.

    In 2018 Koch Foods paid $3,750,000 plus other relief to settle the case.

    • Rayne says:

      You know, if every company which was guilty of discrimination and harassment shut down, there’d be little business in America.

      I’m not excusing this behavior. I want to see a beefy OSHA and EEOC which can adequately police workplace safety and employment law pre-emptively so that businesses don’t find themselves paying out millions in fines and potentially shutting down, eliminating jobs while encouraging hyper-consolidation.

      By the way, next time you share content like this, bring links. Thank you.

      • Minnedame says:

        Lady Sativa, below are a few links to substantiate your post above — as per Rayne’s request.

        Rayne, while it may be true that most companies are not free of discrimination and harassment, the accusations levelled against Koch seem to be different from “run-of-the-mill” workplace misconduct in both degree and kind – not to say that any abuse or discrimination should be tolerated. What’s more – and perhaps more to the point – the fact that this raid follows relatively closely on the heels of the settlement of a lawsuit alleging that managers at the Mississippi plant were abusing undocumented workers and trying effect the workers’ silence about that abuse with threats to report them to immigration authorities suggests that, well, these raids – or, at least, the raid of the Koch plant – may have been, in part, retribution against undocumented workers for having fought back against that abuse.

        Koch settled a lawsuit in which they were charged with labor abuses.
        https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-koch-foods/allegations-of-labor-abuses-dogged-mississippi-plant-years-before-immigration-raids-idUSKCN1UZ1OV

        The USDA found evidence that Koch discriminated against black farmers:
        https://www.propublica.org/article/how-a-top-chicken-company-cut-off-black-farmers-one-by-one

        • Rayne says:

          Except Koch Foods wasn’t the only plant. I’ve yet to see anybody make similar arguments about Peco and the rest of the raided facilities.

          Also doesn’t explain why MS child services hadn’t been engaged in advance for all these sites.

    • Mooser says:

      “This company is so corrupt, it needs to be shut down NOW!!!!!”
      Perhaps the raids will provide a convenient reason for closure and bankruptcy.

  25. Diane says:

    Had the same ‘hinky’ feeling: thanks for digging and scratching the itch.
    How to support these local union efforts?

  26. Democritus says:

    I found a post I wrote months and months ago and is just as apt about our collective need to get off our asses and work to take our country back peacefully and democratically.

    From May:

    Shaken, I’m scared too but we can not just sit on our fears and pretend someone else is coming to save us. You are describing bystander apathy, where everyone sits on their rears and expects someone else to take care of the problem and then nobody does so.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

    Look for ways to help, you try to the extend you are able not to just be a passive actor in your life. It does you or your country no good if you just sit at home and fret.

    SERVE and RESIST advocate for your beliefs, support our free press- subscribe to places you see doing important journalism, talk to friends and neighbors, post on twitter or wherever you comment.

    Take a few hours a week and strategically post, share around and AMPLIFY the best most compelling arguments you find whether from written articles, or commentary. I have found that there are many good arguments in the Reddit politics threads, though there are also defeatist trolls to be ignored since we are in a Cyberwar. When you need to take a break, but come back when you are able and help to fight for your country.

    Can we start a post with lists of helpful actions people can do when they feel helpless? Rayne has call congress down pat :)

  27. harpie says:

    NEW:
    1] Dara Lind retweeted https://twitter.com/Haleaziz/status/1159502089036296192
    9:30 AM – 8 Aug 2019

    NEW: More than 300 workers arrested in a massive ICE operation on Wednesday have been released. Those who were not released will be taken to ICE detention centers. We will get further info later today. Remember, ICE is detaining a record number of individuals — more than 55K.

    2] Hamed Aleaziz retweeted https://twitter.com/diazbriseno/status/1159506202474287104
    9:46 AM – 8 Aug 2019

    JUST IN: 107 Mexicans arrested by ICE in Mississippi raids, per MX Govt [link]

    • e.a.f. says:

      the private prisons must be make a lot of money. the more people detained, the more money some one is making.
      with all that is going on in the U.S.A. most americans must be o.k. with it, because I’m not seeing huge protests anywhere. not about the white nationalism trump promotes, not the caging of children, not the concentration camps, not the round ups a and people wonder how Germany got to where it was with its Holocaust. well just watch what is going on in America. give it 4 years and it will be as bad as Nazi Germany was. by that time a lot of AMERICAS may want to move to mexico

  29. Vern says:

    Saw that no one addressed this, so I will.

    WE DO NOT HAVE AN ILLEGAL WORKER PROBLEM. WE HAVE AN ILLEGAL EMPLOYER PROBLEM.

    Put the illegal employers in jail and the problem will end. And I’d include the soccer mom who hires the little brown guys hanging around at Home Depot because she’s just too hungover to rake her own leaves …

  31. Savage Librarian says:

    Some good news, maybe?

    “Major Wall Street banks hand over treasure trove of information on Russians linked to Trump and family: report”

    “Among the institutions turning over documents, are Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo & Co.”
    “The Journal adds, “The investigators are working on a joint probe into potential foreign influence on Mr. Trump and his family by the House Financial Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee. More information will likely be handed over in coming weeks as the banks continue to respond to subpoenas sent in April.”

    https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/major-wall-street-banks-hand-over-treasure-trove-of-information-on-russians-liked-to-trump-and-family-report/

  32. Areader2019 says:

    I think your ‘hinkeymeter’ is accurate…. the raid might be ICE used as intimidation against workers complaining about bad conditions.

    From paydayreport . com

    ——

    The lawsuit brought by the EEOC against Koch Food Inc’s alleged “that supervisors touched and/or made sexually suggestive comments to female Hispanic employees, hit Hispanic employees and charged many of them money for normal everyday work activities.”

    As part of its settlement, Koch Foods Inc. agreed to a three-year federal consent decree to change its discriminatory practices. As part of the consent decree, Koch Foods Inc. was forced to create a 24-hour-a-day bilingual hotline for workers to use to file complaints.

    Many immigrants rights advocates have speculated that workers are targeted for raids after their facilities get investigated for worker abuse.

    • Rugger9 says:

      Notice that no managers or executives were given the “perp walk” nor was any provision made for the children left behind, literally in the street.

      It’s about being needlessly cruel like Steve Goebbels Miller.

      • Areader2019 says:

        Exactly…..inflicting cruelty is the point. They want to intimidate workers, especially workers who stand up for their rights.

        Trump hires undocumented workers. Then when they complain about unpaid overtime, they get threatened with deportation. The GOP wants to create an underclass of workers with no rights.

  33. Jenny says:

    More to be revealed. McCabe Sues.

    Twitter from Ryan J. Reilly with responses from Marcy.
    https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/1159551405012787201
    NEW: Andrew McCabe sues over firing, says Sessions and Wray “served as Trump’s personal enforcers” and catered “to Trump’s unlawful whims instead of honoring their oaths to uphold the Constitution.”

    Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe Sues Over Firing
    He accused former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and current FBI Director Christopher Wray of catering to Trump’s “unlawful whims.”
    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/andrew-mccabe-lawsuit-trump-sessions-wray_n_5d4c7cbde4b01e44e477774e?3vj

  35. Watson says:

    AOC and Bernie are extremists? Well then, so was Dem Prez FDR who anticipated their policies with his call for a ‘Second Bill of Rights’ 75 years ago:

    * The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
    * The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
    * The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
    * The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
    * The right of every family to a decent home;
    * The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
    * The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
    * The right to a good education.

    • Areader2019 says:

      Heck…Eisenhower was an extremist by their standards: (snopes . com)
      ——
      The Eisenhower Administration will continue to fight for dynamic and progressive programs which, among other things, will:

      Stimulate improved job safety of our workers, through assistance to the States, employees and employers;

      Continue and further perfect its programs of assistance to the millions of workers with special employment problems, such as older workers, handicapped workers, members of minority groups, and migratory workers;

      Strengthen and improve the Federal-State Employment Service and improve the effectiveness of the unemployment insurance system;

      Protect by law, the assets of employee welfare and benefit plans so that workers who are the beneficiaries can be assured of their rightful benefits;

      Assure equal pay for equal work regardless of Sex;

      Clarify and strengthen the eight-hour laws for the benefit of workers who are subject to federal wage standards on Federal and Federally-assisted construction, and maintain and continue the vigorous administration of the Federal prevailing minimum wage law for public supply contracts;

      Extend the protection of the Federal minimum wage laws to as many more workers as is possible and practicable;

      Continue to fight for the elimination of discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry or sex;

      Provide assistance to improve the economic conditions of areas faced with persistent and substantial unemployment.

      • Democritus says:

        That really does put the party’s dramatic lurch right in perspective. I might go bookmark that for future evidence in arguments/debates.

        • Areader2019 says:

          I keep some of these in text files… just to cut and paste.

          Eisenhower wanted to “assure equal pay for equal work regardless of sex”! That would be considered far left crazy hippie talk today. We are at what..women get paid 75 percent..80 percent of men? He wanted to extend the federal minimum wage!

          I think Bernie missed an opportunity to market himself not as a “progressive” but as a return to Eisenhower. (Not to even mention what the top marginal tax bracket was back then).

        • Democritus says:

          I’m with Warren myself, mainly because while I think fairness and competition needs to be restored and tax rates raised on the wealthiest etc, and she DID have the sense to paint herself as a trustbuster.

          Mind you I will vote for an old can of spam against Trump! Blue no matter who.

    • harpie says:

      More:
      https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1159580682747875330
      2:42 PM – 8 Aug 2019

      Scoop: The deputy director of national intelligence, Sue Gordon, will leave her position following a meeting in Oval with Trump today, sources tell me.

      Some natl security aides have told me Sue Gordon is one of strongest leaders in intel community, saying she tells truth even when people don’t want to hear it.

      But she has detractors, including those who tagged her an acolyte of John Brennan, who has become a major Trump foe.

    • Rugger9 says:

      If there ever was a time for someone to tell Kaiser Quisling to fire them instead of resigning, this was one. Make KQ and the Palace break the law clearly and deliberately so they can face the music later. Resigning only gives KQ an excuse to say he didn’t fire anyone.

      He’ll do it for spite, just see how he canned McCabe to dick around with McCabe’s pension. And, that will be the evidence needed.

      • Vicks says:

        Something is off.
        Excuse the drama but if Trump and company are truly as dangerous as many of us are willing to believe, wouldn’t people at Sue Gordon’s or Coats level know at least enough of the details to help save this country?
        I understand that there is a code that these dedicated people live by, but if they are that dedicated how can they resign knowing they are making room for someone who’s assignment will be to do whatever it takes to destroy our democracy?
        I understand that they would probably lose their pension if they were fired but how do people who have invested their adult lives in service to this country just grab their check and say C’est la vie?

        • bmaz says:

          Seriously? People at extremely high levels, and those who very recently were, have already said this.

          It meant nothing to Trump.

        • Vicks says:

          I don’t get your point.
          I’m talking about doing something meaningful for our country not DJT.
          In just the last couple days two people “at extremely high levels” that Trump had terrorized for months and then finally had fired now appear to be using what they know about Trump’s crime of obstructing justice to open up big cans of shit for this administration.
          I can’t get into Sue Gordon’s head, my comment was simply that it’s hard for me to imagine someone so invested in keeping our country safe, IF she knows what I think she knows, just rolling over and handing Trump the keys.

        • Savage Librarian says:

          I don’t know how these things work. So, this is just a wild guess. But, could it have something to do with unemployment compensation? Maybe she would not get it if she was fired.

        • Vicks says:

          Perhaps you mean her pension?
          She would have a better chance of getting unemployment compensation if she was fired under these circumstances.
          Either way I know I am being too harsh, I can only hope that this helplessness is just a temporary situation.
          Perhaps Ms. Gordon is another Trump casualty that has the foresight and patience to know that revenge is a dish best served cold, and she is leaving with the knowledge that whatever it is she knows will come out sooner rather than later, perhaps by someone under oath during an impeachment hearing, orin redacted sections in a ci report.

    • harpie says:

      WSJ has pdf of the letter and handwritten note:
      https://twitter.com/dnvolz/status/1159626690332639239
      5:45 PM – 8 Aug 2019

      Sue Gordon left a letter for Trump with a handwritten note that made clear she was resigning because he wanted her to.
      “I offer this letter as an act of respect & patriotism, not preference. You should have your team.” She signed it: “Godspeed.” [link]
      pdf link:
      https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/INTELL-letter008082019.pdf

    • harpie says:

      More details:
      https://twitter.com/dabeard/status/1159943379645534208
      2:43 PM – 9 Aug 2019

      Somehow apt that Sue Gordon was running a meeting to protect America’s elections when she was interrupted and told she had to quit

      links to CNN:
      Top intel official interrupted meeting to urge his deputy to resign
      https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/09/politics/sue-gordon-resignation-coats-interrupts-meeting/index.html
      Updated 5:32 PM ET, Fri August 9, 2019

      The country’s No. 2 intelligence official, Sue Gordon, knew it was likely she would have to eventually step down from her post, but the timing of that decision became more urgent on Thursday after her boss — outgoing spy chief Dan Coats — interrupted a meeting she was holding on election security and asked his deputy to submit her letter of resignation, sources familiar with the events told CNN.

      While details of the conversation between Gordon, an intelligence veteran of more than 30 years, and Coats remain unclear, sources say that the situation clearly abruptly changed after the meeting was interrupted.

      Shortly after her encounter with Coats, Gordon submitted her letter of resignation to Vice President Mike Pence, though the document itself was addressed to Trump, according to officials, a highly unusual move that prompted some confusion among some West Wing officials who waited for the President’s tweet confirming the news. […]

      • harpie says:

        Again, doing what he accuses others of…in this case, politicizing the IC:

        […] Intelligence professionals emphasize the need to keep politics out of their work in order to offer policy makers the clearest assessment they can of threats and opportunities.

        Yet, Trump has made clear his desire to bring to heel US intelligence agencies, which have produced evidence he disagrees with on Iran, North Korea, Russia’s interference in US elections and other issues. […]

        He does NOT want evidence which he disagrees with.
        duh!

  37. Rugger9 says:

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/8/1877671/-ICE-agents-tried-to-raid-a-Brooklyn-homeless-shelter-but-were-blocked-because-they-had-no-warrant
    – discusses the continuing lies by ICE to get into facilities.

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/8/1877681/-Demand-for-answers-into-jailing-of-U-S-citizens-by-immigration-officials-continue-to-escalate
    – discusses the growing pushback about the detention of citizens as illegal immigrants. This example of Palace stupidity rankles more than usual, especially considering how Kaiser Quisling never stops pointing out how foolproof his plans are. ICE refused to budge even when presented with documents, calling them fake news, until the press got involved. As an aside, this is why the courtier press attitude of the NYT and WashPo must be destroyed, since no one would expect Maggie Haberman or Chris Cillizza to constrain future acess by reporting this flagrant abuse of an American citizen under color of authority (and he’s not alone). Remember that KQ thinks he is able to screen out illegal voters but Crosscheck and Texas’ attempted purge clearly showed how crappy the data was and that the Palace didn’t care if the skin color was not to their liking.

    Note that one of the ones sent “back” to Iraq (not a citizen, but more like a Dreamer) died there.

    KQ will pay the price at the end of all things for which I’ll make popcorn.

  38. glen says:

    PEOPLE, PEOPLE!!!

    What you see here is Tyson Foods using it’s political power to break the back of one of their last competitors.

        • bmaz says:

          Who the hell is “Klinton”? Is that like the people here who think they are oh so cute that they cannot utter or spell Trump’s name? And in so doing would pettily rather make the comment section of this blog look like idiots?

          Is that what this is? If so, get the fuck out. This crap is not cute. It is not smart. It is just childish, ridiculous and stupid. Stop this stupid ass shit. And stop making us look like dopes for hosting commenters that are this petty and silly. Seriously, is there liquid stupid in the US water supply?

        • Rayne says:

          God damn, I am sticking with imported beer if this shit keeps up. Maybe that blast in Arkhangelsk, Russian spewed something more than a little radiation into the atmosphere and cooked a few brains.

        • Rugger9 says:

          It’s not the first time the Northern Fleet blew up their weapons stash. We had one before that may have involved nukes (they have a distinctive vibration signature that shows up on the earthquake monitors) but I didn’t see that note made this time.

          Like Port Chicago in WWII, even conventional blasts can be pretty damn big and nasty.

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          I thought that’s what fluoridation was. Purity of Essence and all that. Thanks for all the clean-up work, you two.

        • Eureka says:

          I, too, appreciate all of the clean-up action by the dynamic duo– though I did enjoy this particular mess (aka Mysteries of the RWNJ Mind Revealed). Who needs Leonard Nimoy on the case when they come to you?

        • Democritus says:

          Bmaz, thank you for making me feel a bit better about myself. ;-) 😂

          I never got the liquid stupid treatment! God Im sure I can’t imagine how much shit you guys see, though I see enough trolls scrolling through the twitters and Reddit.

          Thank you guys for the place where the truth is told, and for guarding the perimeter with the prickly points! Oh, speaking of the SW; hatch chili season coming up! We usually end up with a big batch of stew.

          Though I’m a “wimp” apparently.

        • Rayne says:

          Not funny at all, especially when you have zero supporting material for your s.w.a.g.

          The name is Clinton and neither Bill nor Hillary were at the helm between 2009-2016.

      • Vicks says:

        Supposedly they did recon and knew these places were knowingly hiring* immigrants without legal paperwork.
        They were obviously going for shock and awe maybe it is as “innocent” as narrowing it down to what (approved) locations would produce the best show?
        Which begs the question why the hell management isn’t in jail.
        *So much easier to claim immigrants are coming here to sponge off socialists benefits than to admit that coming to the United States would be a lot less appealing if greedy cheapskate corporate assholes didn’t pretty much guarantee work with these shit jobs no one else will take,

        • Rayne says:

          It’s not just any one reason, but the selection likely includes reasons which aren’t to the letter of the law, have a political rational, and involve a transactional basis for Trump’s benefit.

          These companies hired undocumented reasons for the same reasons Trump did. No journalist has the conjones/ovarios to ask him why he permitted such hiring, and why his businesses are the exception.

          I haven’t gotten around to reading federal employment law but I am betting there’s a deliberate hole designed to allow businesses to avoid accountability apart from fines.

        • Democritus says:

          I’m pretty sure there is a loophole, something where they are allowed plausible deniability. I believe Everify is voluntary except for federal contractors, but I’ve been out of management for years now. We also had tighter restrictions for other laws anyway.

          I do sometimes miss bossing people around, but also being responsible for them and making sure they were squared away. The cats let me pretend I’m in charge, but you know that they aren’t gonna putt up with any bs.

          Quick search to Reddit got me this, which says knowingly:

          https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1324a

        • Vicks says:

          I don’t know what the loopholes are but if a company doesn’t use e-verify (that should be a give-away for any largish company that employs a lot of immigrants) here is the form that employers must have on file for each employee to show they have legal work status.
          https://www.uscis.gov/system/files_force/files/form/i-9-paper-version.pdf
          One would think ICE would first demand access to the files and make arrests accordingly.
          These are important documents, passports birth certificates etc. an employee would not be expected to carry them on their persons so it will be interesting to see how these decisions were made.

  39. earlofhuntingdon says:

    I’m persuaded that one of the motivations for the ICE raids was preemption, to tamp down the response by minorities generally to being targeted by American white supremacist murderers. An ounce of prevention and all that.

    I think there are parallels. It is probably no coincidence that this year is the 100th since the Red Summer of 1919. Organized white supremacists attacked African Americans in dozens of major cities, resulting in hundreds of deaths, and more injuries. Service in the Great War might have given them ideas, you see, as might the Russian Revolution of 1917.

    It was an ugly summer. The previous November, the Great War had ended, followed immediately by the global flu pandemic. It was followed that autumn by the Palmer Raids, part of the so-called first Red Scare. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and his helpmate, J. Edgar Hoover, launched surprise raids across the country, many of them later declared illegal, which targeted immigrants and dissidents.

    Stephen Miller knows all about these and many more. He studies hard about things that interest him.

    • Democritus says:

      I have some pictures and clippings in the other room from when my relatives served in WW1 and seeing the Calvary pants and outdated gear, and also the pictures of the devastation in Muesse was just…

    • OmAli says:

      eoh wrote, “I’m persuaded that one of the motivations for the ICE raids was preemption, to tamp down the response by minorities generally to being targeted by American white supremacist murderers. An ounce of prevention and all that.”

      Agreed. I think it was also meant as a booster shot for the base, in the off chance they might be flagging, after this truly awful week. Unlikely, I know. They are in for a penny, in for a pound.

      I keep thinking of those children, waiting at school, crying in parking lots. To do that, after El Paso. Only a monster. In order to feed the other monsters.

      I will be so glad when he is gone. Even the cleanup will be a relief.

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        Yep, cruelty, especially to the most vulnerable – children, elderly relatives, non-working partners – IS the point.

        It is a standard intelligence agency technique, used to destabilize and violently overthrow foreign governments that threaten not to comply with US priorities.

        It is documented, for example, in the KUBARK [CIA] Counterintelligence Interrogation and Human Resource Exploitation manuals from the early sixties – based on earlier techniques – and reissued at various times. As I said, Miller enjoys the homework when it interests him.

        Whatever demons Miller, Trump, and Mulvaney struggle with, they should do it in small, padded rooms, not from the White House.

  41. Democritus says:

    Just want to beat. I’ve been wanting to raise about this whole debate they’re having about Castro pushing out information about who donated to Trump the Republicans have no problem using people’s political donations.

    I mean look at just about every single person who worked on the Mueller team who had their political donations examined. It’s just the Republicans doing their disingenuous bs, and they don’t like US using it when it’s not in their favor. The Republicans just want unilateral disarmament by the Democrats for using most political tactics.

  42. e.a.f. says:

    the raids were bit of a distraction from what was going on in the msm about the shootings and took attention away from those who were outraged about the shootings.

    My take on the raids was, some one pissed off trump or one of his friends, and they’re sending a message. Trump’s own businesses have used undocumented workers, its an American past time.
    While reading an article today, regarding the raids, the article informed readers that there are a shortage of workers in the U.S.A. especially in the area of food factories. chicken processing plant work is very hard on a person’s body, repeditive motion injuries are frequent. Back in the 1990s, saw a documentary about people who worked on the “kill line” in a chicken processing plant as part of a WCB course. Lots of injuries.

    some figures are suggesting the U.S.A. Has a shortage of workers for these plants, service sector, resturants, etc. So if ICE is rounding up people for deportation they aren’t doing it as a favour to the employers. They aren’t charging the employers, which seems strange. Perhaps the real reason is Trump and his ilk want to ensure they receive large campaign donations from some of these corporations and to terrorise immigrants, documented and undocumented and workers of colour.

    Its all part of a theme in the U.S.A. the “banning of Muslims”, the disgusting language by the president regarding people of Hispanic heritage, the separation of children and parents at the border, the concentration camps for adults and children. Now the round of people of colour have started. Looks a lot like 1930s Germany. Trump looks a lot like Musssolini and talks a lot like Hitler.

  43. Democritus says:

    Ok, I just found a wild thread that keeps take my me places I did NOT expect to be taken. Possibly nsfw, mild sex Ed pregnancy discussion type stuff though it get a little twisty, but thought provoking which is the point. To point out our inherent bias by our response to her words. Great tactic.

    https://twitter.com/designmom/status/1040363431893725184

    I’m just 😯 and I’m not done yet, but holy fuck it 2 am and have no one to share it with.

    • harpie says:

      ugggg
      White House proposal would have FCC and FTC police alleged social media censorship
      https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/09/tech/white-house-social-media-executive-order-fcc-ftc/index.html
      Updated 1:08 PM ET, Fri August 9, 2019

      A draft executive order from the White House could put the Federal Communications Commission in charge of shaping how Facebook (FB), Twitter (TWTR) and other large tech companies curate what appears on their websites, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

      The draft order, a summary of which was obtained by CNN, calls for the FCC to develop new regulations clarifying how and when the law protects social media websites when they decide to remove or suppress content on their platforms. […]

      In May, the White House launched a website inviting consumers to report complaints of alleged partisan bias by social media companies. […]

      The attempt to write the order comes as the White House on Friday prepared to meet with a number of tech companies to discuss their approaches to detecting and responding to violent extremism. […]

      • P J Evans says:

        The fact that they haven’t kicked Tr*mp off any for his stuff that violates TOS for every one I know of should be enough to tell people that social media doesn’t care about hate speech.
        (They’ll censor anything that looks like female bodies, though.)

      • r helder says:

        now that is scary! can you imagine how the administration would censor emptywheel! even if only an unenforceable executive order, it shows their long term plans

  48. Jenny says:

    With the open thread, lightening up the conversation.

    Blast from the Past – Peace, Love and Rock and Roll.

    American Experience: PBS
    Woodstock
    In August, 1969, half a million people from all walks of life and every corner of the country converged on a small dairy farm in upstate New York. They came to hear the concert of their lives, but most experienced something far more profound.
    https://www.pbs.org/video/woodstock-kshqlw/

    • Democritus says:

      Oh this sounds great, I’m taking my first break from reading the sweet opinion, and I only made in to page 12. I have a feeling with this for my own mental health I should just wait for the articles to be released, but I’ll fire this up to listen and see if I get further.

      I really can’t help but wonder who the world famous scientist is, and I am pretty sure I’m gonna be a little broken hearted when/if that name gets out. I hope it wasn’t Hawking, and that name is just there because he was the most renowned scientist. I’ve read Epstein courted many in the field.

      Either way, man that Klasfield does damn good work.

      ETA, of the rain! This looks neat! Sigh, I want to watch the wonder years and just take a break from now.

  49. Democritus says:

    We got Clinton and trum references on the same page 439

    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1159838465808224256

    Links to:

    https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6250478-Giuffre-Exhibits.html

    It says Donald Trump is a good friend of Epstein’s but he didn’t partake in any sex with them but he would say Epstein had the life. I think that this may be Virginia referring to things Maxwell told her, not first person accounts. I’m skimming to much on my first scan.

    Lots of conversation about Clinton Secret Service protection. I’m really glad Gillibrand brand started calling Clinton out.

    • Democritus says:

      To expand that deposition goes on to say Virginia had no interactions with Trump nor saw Trump pursue sexual actions with others girls. Damn, when you are surprised your president didn’t do that.

      There is also a great piece here by Joyce Vance on how When she was asked to do a raid in Alabama she asked if the agents were building a case against the owners of the plant.

      https://twitter.com/Elise_Jordan/status/1159840290875645952

      I’m just so fucking sick of seeing the most vulnerable being exploited, over and over.

      • Democritus says:

        Sorry, but I just saw a perfect example of the concept I’ve been trying to express by saying the GOP, and the both sides framing they have been pushing, causes unilateral disarmament when the Dems don’t stick to their rhetorical guns:

        “One breath, Trump criticizes Dems for calling people racist. “Racist, racist, racist, that’s all they use.” In another breath, he calls Hollywood racist. “I don’t call them elites… You talk about racists? Hollywood is racist,” he said at the White House”

        https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1159856819415801857

        Perfect example when the Dems back off and say OK maybe what he said wasn’t technically racist heat they will keep doing this the Democrats need to stand up for the truth.

        They have been doing that this time, with the media’s help, and it is helping force some change. Well except the NYT, just saw Ed’s retweet of

        https://twitter.com/teddygoff/status/1159809512137560064/photo/1

    • Areader2019 says:

      Thank you for posting the Giuffre link.

      I’ve read a couple articles about how the records were unsealed….but none had a link to the documents. I thought ‘someone on emptywheel will post a link’. You have out journalisted the journalists.

      • Democritus says:

        I really don’t know that I would go that far, but I always appreciate a compliment so thank you :)

        Adam Klasfield really does a great job if you are looking for a twitter to follow. Soychika is my new fall back since she came through last time, but she is a civilian so she has different rules of the road for posting which is important to keep in mind.

  50. Rayne says:

    OMG the latest extremely breathless troll screaming obscenities at us also thinks Bill Clinton signed a permission slip allowing Trump (as a presidential candidate) to ask Russia for help.

    ~face palm~ Why didn’t we think of that?? LMAO

    • Democritus says:

      Rayne through my powers of ESP I was able to find a likeness of your troll:

      🥴🥴🥴

      🧐🤔🤣🤣🤣

  51. Democritus says:

    More inhumane treatment of the “other”

    First up, this guy is gonna get Sarah Silverman killed:

    https://twitter.com/harryjaffe/status/1159919982857375744

    Tweet quoted”We must kill
    @sarahksilverman
    because she is a witch and a whore.” More flags need to be raised.

    Second
    Immigrants detained during mass ICE raids could be held in abusive Louisiana facility
    Over 100 immigrants were pepper-sprayed at Louisiana ICE facilities earlier in August.

    “One of the facilities where a number of the immigrants reportedly will be detained is the ICE Processing Center in Pine Prairie where the outlet reported earlier this month that 100 immigrants were pepper-sprayed following a peaceful demonstration in the facility’s courtyard.
    …
    SNIP
    …
    The group said the total number of immigrants pepper-sprayed at the facility was closer to 115, and that not only were they tear-gassed, but the migrants also allegedly were shot at with rubber bullets, beaten, held in solitary confinement, and blocked from contacting their families or attorneys.”

    https://thinkprogress.org/hundreds-of-immigrants-arrested-in-mississippi-ice-raid-could-be-detained-at-an-abusive-facility-f52f32e4c692/

    • e.a.f. says:

      and who says you can’t re create the past. trump and his gestapo seem to have re created 1930s Nazi germany

    • bmaz says:

      First off, federal warrants are almost never made public that fast. Secondly, it is still sick ass stuff, because the target of any action based on that information should have been the owners and operators of said facilities. There would not be specific enough of particularization for vague groups of immigrants. If this article is right (and it may not be; reporters are generally shit on this kind of subject), there are real problems here.

      • P J Evans says:

        Thanks, bmaz.
        (It’s probably useful to remember that ICE likes to use administrative warrants, not judicial warrants.)

      • Vicks says:

        Agree, and now every time they* are asked if they are pursuing the companies that hired these folks, they respond by telling reporters to look at their history of punishing employers and proceed to rattle off stats.
        Pretty sure that’s a “no”.
        Sounds like there are several layers of scum to wade through on this one.

        *This AM it was someone from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi blowing smoke. Sounds like they have successfully coordinated their talking points

        .

    • harpie says:

      AP/NYT:
      Ohio Man Charged With Making Online Threat to Ocasio-Cortez
      https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/08/09/us/ap-us-congresswoman-threat-charge.html
      Aug. 9, 2019

      Authorities say an Ohio man has been charged in federal court for a Facebook post saying U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “should be shot.”

      The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Cleveland says 41-year-old Timothy Ireland, of Toledo, was charged Friday with making interstate threats.

      An arrest warrant affidavit says U.S. Capitol Police received a tip July 23 about the post. The affidavit written by a Capitol Police special agent says he called Ireland earlier this month and that Ireland acknowledged writing the post concerning the New York Democrat and said he was very proud of it. […]

    • harpie says:

      https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1160054068749975557
      10:03 PM – 9 Aug 2019

      Michigan cop didn’t think to take down the confederate flags and KKK artifacts before a realtor started showing his house.

      Links to:
      https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1160050914616598528
      9:51 PM – 9 Aug 2019
      Michigan cop is suspended after house hunter uncovers racist memorabilia August 8, 2019 | 8:10pm

      A white Michigan cop [Charles Anderson, a 20-year veteran of the Muskegon Police Department] was put on leave this week after a black family touring his house with a realtor stumbled onto a trove of racist memorabilia — including an “application for citizenship” to the KKK.

      “I’m seeing Confederate flags on the walls, the dining room table, and even the garage,” house hunter [Detroit native and U.S. Army vet] Rob Mathis said on Facebook […]

      If it’s hanging on the walls and lying on the tables, I don’t think “stumbled” is quite the right word…

  54. P J Evans says:

    Headline at SFGate: “Trump seeks input from NRA for ‘common-sense’ gun legislation”
    As if they want any!

  55. orionATL says:

    the illegal immigrants who come here serve a very important economic need, much as turkish workers did in germany, the Netherlands, and belgium some decades earlier. and forget those guest worker visa programs. they are a sham, very difficult for workers to obtain and very expensive for farmers. why not let folks come and go as the economy dictates – what happened to the god of supply and demand that our businesses and Republican political leaders profess to worship?

    this is not just a question of president trump’s quintessential meanness indicated by the STATE-SPONSORED TERRORISM involving separating children from their parent ordered by recent-immigrant-family members Donald trump and stephen miller and supported by the likes of immigrant-spawn tucker carlson, but a serious income and tax-revenue question for many counties in many states. it is rarely understood just how important farm and farms related businesses are to the economies of these small-population counties and states. american farmers need these workers and so do businesses associated with farming, like dairying and yogurt makers, chicken, pork, and beef processors, fruit and vegetable workers. i recall a very sad picture from several years ago of a distraught woman farmer standing near and in piles of unpicked pears in her orchard when california went thru one of its anti-immigrant seizures (though it could have been oregon or washington). who the hell do you think picks that lettuce and tomatoes and those watermelons you eat? i can almost guarantee michigan fruit and wisconsin dairy need their share of this cheap immigrant labor, as do Georgia blueberries – big time money crop here.

    read all about it:

    – https://reason.com/2011/09/29/alabama-cracks-down-on-illegal/
    (reason.com is s&d fan john gault’s must-read)

    – https://www.farmprogress.com/tobacco/north-carolina-growers-facing-labor-shortages

    • bmaz says:

      This country has always had a love/hate relationship with immigrant workers, not just from Mexico, but from Philippines, and many other places. The Bracero Program originally sought to acknowledge and formalize that, and, predictably, turned into a long hot mess. Which was not surprising, it was kind of sick from the start. There was, at a minimum, at least an acknowledgment of the value of these humans though. Kind of.

      We have never been right on this issue. At one point, there was at least an attempt, even if a pretty bad one. But what Trump is doing is just nuts.

      • orionATL says:

        yes. well said.

        these days i often think of the chinese immigrants brought in to build the american railroads west. every vicious or prejudicial view or comment and every legal injustice possible visited was heaped on these immigrants who had been invited in to our country. their lives were not worth a plugged nickel and they experienced many of the legal injustices heaped on american blacks.

        racism, at its source, is really just a particularly vicious form of socially legitimized bullying – bullying of those widely known to be unable to defend themselves and widely considered to live outside the protections our society offers its chosen members.

        – https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chinese_Americans

        – https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinaman's_chance

        • Rayne says:

          Most Americans were taught absolutely nothing about the Chinese Exclusion Act, let alone the many anti-Chinese riots and massacres which occurred throughout the 1800s. Exclusion is why my antecedent never made it to California. For many Americans of Asian heritage, especially Chinese and Japanese, we are always becoming American in the eyes of white Americans though we’ve been here for generations.

        • Eureka says:

          You’re right, and there’s a lot worth discussing here. Many renditions of immigration law/tolerance history that include these earlier aspects also (+/-) inadvertently sort of shuffle this off when the laws/stories start to focus more on Europeans (e.g. Irish esp. come to mind– in treatment, if not law, at the time– but also others) then into Eastern Europeans and the interactions with the Holocaust, etc.

          The anti-Asian racism gets lost and not only never resolved (like everything else), but almost footnoted. And also the multiplicity of colonialist fetishisms…

          Call it ‘forgotten racism.’ Or maybe instead the racism of forgetting.

        • Eureka says:

          Adding, particularly as Rayne has identified this as an understudied topic:

          As cued by “multiplicity of,” to be clear I do not restrict fetishisms to those, better known, that are sexual in nature.

          It’s a complex topic with varied subtopical threads.

        • Rayne says:

          The “racism of forgetting” is erasure. Marginalized people are erased from history or anywhere they are inconvenient to those in power. It happens in other countries between other groups as well.

          Churchill said, “History is written by the victors.” But history is not fact. John Adams knew better: “Facts are stubborn things.”

  56. orionATL says:

    crop-picking robots to “lure” American workers back to farm work? who the hell do they think their are kidding.

    you’ve got to be really hungry and really used to very hard work to ever want to to this work for any amount. that is one thing i love about immigrant workers; their ca0avity for really hard physical work for long hours – reminds me of my family and the very poor and mostly illiterate who helped us on a dairy farm, all white from as far back in the hollers as you could go, no blacks or immigrants anywhere near:

    – https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-farm-mechanization/

    – https://www.huffpost.com/entry/migrant-workers-us-food-production_n_56f01385e4b09bf44a9ddf38

    to repeat, there is an economic question as well as a moral one. trump’s foolish second-generation, little rich boy prejudices are harming the economy in terms of its food supply on matters of immigration, just as he is seriously harming it, farming certainly, with his ignorant, destructive, bombastic “art-of-the-deal” trade follies. what an idiot the Russians, the ny times, facebook’s dedicated trump-boys,father james comey, severe vote suppression, and a barely sufficient number of politically dumb or politically conniving American voters ushered into our live’s.

    – https://religionnews.com/2017/05/12/james-comey-the-fall-of-a-niebuhrian-commentary/

    reinhold neibuhr on the other hand was a great man who saw his way and his duty more clearly.

    • e.a.f. says:

      if farmers can’t get workers and their farms fail, it will be easy for agri business to step in and buy it all up. then they will have complete control of the American food supply.

      I do recall some years ago the American government started a campaign to deport those workers who picked lettuce in Alabama. that didn’t work out so well and the farmers finally got the government to back off. no lettuce was being picked. when food roots in the fields, food prices go up. now it maybe the intent that agri business can import more foreign food, but I’m pretty sure trump just doesn’t care about the food prices, he just wants as many people of colour gone. he is just so white supremist. His daughter and son in law ought to get a grip though, because once this ball really gets rolling they too will be candidates for the camps. Even some of the Rothschilds died in the concentration camps. the true believers of white supremacy don’t care how rich you are, if you’re not a wasp, you’re dead.

  58. Tom says:

    Re: that grotesque photo of Melania holding the orphaned little boy while Donald grins for the camera and gives the thumbs-up sign, David Brooks said on the PBS Newshour Friday that he views this as evidence that the President is a sociopath, unable even to fake a show of empathy in a situation where it would most be called for. I also wonder how many white-supremacist types might see that same photo and interpret it as Trump giving a not-so-subtle message of “Good work, boys!” to his fellow racists around the country.

    • harpie says:

      Jenny posted this on another thread:
      El Paso Orphan’s Family Explains Trump Photo with Baby
      https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/456881-el-paso-orphans-family-explains-trump-photo-with-baby
      Hear’s an excerpt:

      But Anchondo rejected that criticism, telling telling NPR that his family members are Republican conservatives, and his brother “was very supportive of Trump.” Instead, Anchondo said that he wanted to “have a human-to-human talk” with the president, despite none of the eight currently hospitalized victims of the shooting reportedly agreeing to meet with Trump.

      “I want to see his reaction in person,” Anchondo told NPR. “I want to see if he’s genuine and see if my political views are right or wrong. And see if he feels maybe some kind of remorse for statements that he’s made. I just want to have a human-to-human talk with him and see how he feels.” […]

    • harpie says:

      Presidential photographer [Obama] Pete Souza has some questions about that photo:

      https://twitter.com/PeteSouza/status/1160180197095878657
      6:24 AM – 10 Aug 2019

      Yes, Melania posted this on Twitter; but the WH first posted the photo publicly on its Flickr site. Questions:
      Why is everyone looking off-camera?
      Was there a second photographer’s camera they were looking at?
      Who are the people on either side that have been cropped out?

    • Mooser says:

      It’s the photo with the El Paso hospital staff which wrings my withers.
      The ‘staff’ is petting Trump, and all have big grins.
      In the middle of treating the victims of the shooting. Big, big smiles, petting Trump?

  59. harpie says:

    Jeffrey Epstein Commits Suicide at Manhattan Jail
    Mr. Epstein, the financier indicted on sex trafficking charges last month, hung himself and his body was found this morning. [8/10/19]
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-suicide.html

    Jeffrey Epstein, the financier indicted on sex trafficking charges last month, committed suicide at a Manhattan jail, officials said on Saturday. // Mr. Epstein hanged himself and his body was found this morning at Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan at roughly 7:30. […]
    It was not immediately clear on Saturday whether the authorities had put in additional safeguards to watch him after the incident last month. […]

      • Democritus says:

        Because some people(trolls, whatever) start saying that Jeffrey Epstein is still alive and running around out somewhere

        There are pictures of his dead body being wheeled into the hospital on Jonathan Levine’s / NY Post Twitter account (I don’t want to link it here in case the authors wouldnt want it linked here. It is a dead body.)

        Oh my fucking God I just fuck Lynn Patton.

        • Democritus says:

          Sigh.

          Yeah, and how corrupt this administration is and the lengths they have gone to to clean out a ton of regular civilian positions in agencies from USDA to DoS doesn’t help. I worry it’s going to feed a bunch of false bs that makes it harder to find the truth.

          I also wish Lisa Bloom wasn’t involved honestly. I don’t really trust her that much, nothing concrete to be fair, just a meh gut feeling, the same way I feel about Cuomo.

      • harpie says:

        Some time between 5:58PM [ET] and 6:08PM the nation’s
        Chief Conspiracy Theorist retweeted:
        1] https[:]//twitter[.]com/BreakingNLive/status/1160298731192881152
        2:15 PM – 10 Aug 2019

        BREAKING: Documents were unsealed yesterday revealing that top Democrats, including Bill Clinton, took private trips to Jeffrey Epstein’s “pedophilia island” […]

        2] https[:]//twitter[.]com/w_terrence/status/1160256105399967744
        11:26 AM – 10 Aug 2019

        Died of SUICIDE on 24/7 SUICIDE WATCH ? Yeah right! How does that happen How does that happen # JefferyEpstein had information on Bill Clinton & now he’s dead I see # TrumpBodyCount trending but we know who did this! RT if you’re not Surprised # EpsteinSuicide # ClintonBodyCount # ClintonCrimeFamily [VIDEO]

        • bmaz says:

          I cannot click on those links, much less figure how to fix them where I can.

          Can we not do that with every link ever supplied? Links are not worth squat if they cannot be used. We do not need live links to quack sites, nutbag joints, or Russian troll junk (Facebook is little shaky too). Twitter, the WaPo, NYT, Buzzfeed, Daily Beast etc. are fine.

        • Rayne says:

          The point was sharing what the Conspiracist-in-Chief tweeted and indicating the source without driving traffic to it. I think in the case of these specific links breaking them is warranted.

        • bmaz says:

          Fine. Then I will never go to that bunk. And it is just worthless bullshit clogging comments. Might as well not even bother. I do not have time to go decode already harmless shit. And I do not give a damn about driving traffic. If it cannot be looked at, don’t post it. But if it is a safe site and is worth posting, put it in a form a person can click on. This is just absurd.

          So, if people want to post absolutely safe links, and make them completely worthless to readers, go ahead. Don’t expect that anybody will waste time decoding the Enigma machine. I sure won’t.

        • P J Evans says:

          Very small changes, and they’re marked. Take out the square brackets around the punctuation marks to get a working URL.

        • bmaz says:

          No. Not going to waste my time on that. If it is a safe site and you put that garbage in I will never read it. This is just ridiculous. I will never in my life leave useless links like that for you, if you do me, I will not read them, and it is a waste of time.

      • bmaz says:

        Yashar ali is a noisy guy that is often full of shit. First off, MCC is NOT a fucking prison, it is a pre-trial detention facility as to Epstein, as well as but only a few convicted persons with only very short sentences. Second, there are cameras all over every facility, whether they are on specific detainees and their cells is a far different matter. Epstein may, or may not, have been on “suicide watch”, that seems to be in somewhat dispute at this point. His statement that “The people who care most about Epstein being dead are the people we don’t know about” is patently asinine, and he doesn’t know jack. In short, Ali is just full of shit again.

    • harpie says:

      https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1160209213798395904
      8:20 AM – 10 Aug 2019

      BREAKING: Jeffrey Epstein was in his own cell at the time of his death, and was not on suicide watch, multiple people familiar with the investigation tell @NBCNews

      Marcy responds to this as well as FBI investigation:
      https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1160214071490351104 8:39 AM – 10 Aug 2019

      Note, FBI investigation into his death may prevent/delay DOJ IG from investigating it (and why the fuck he wasn’t on suicide watch).

    • harpie says:

      Statement from Attorney General William P. Barr on the Death of Jeffrey Epstein
      https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/statement-attorney-general-william-p-barr-death-jeffrey-epstein

      “I was appalled to learn that Jeffrey Epstein was found dead early this morning from an apparent suicide while in federal custody. Mr. Epstein’s death raises serious questions that must be answered. In addition to the FBI’s investigation, I have consulted with the Inspector General who is opening an investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Epstein’s death.”

  60. harpie says:

    I think there’s a lot of good information in this thread and article Democritus posted on another thread: https://twitter.com/natijomartinez/status/1159810402655637505

    Linked article: For five years, Facebook has let a white supremacist dog whistle thrive
    Since 2014, right-wing Facebook pages have used the word “invasion” to push hateful rhetoric targeting Muslim and Latinx immigrants.
    https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-let-white-supremacist-dog-whistle-invasion-thrive-years
    NATALIE MARTINEZ 08/09/19 8:48 AM EDT
    From the article:

    […] Anti-immigrant “invasion” narratives gained traction on right-wing Facebook pages in August 2014 when Barack Obama was president. […]

    Anti-immigrant “invasion” posts in 2014 followed a template: fearmonger about Latin American immigrants coming to the U.S. and blame Obama for it. […]

    In 2015, as the presidential election cycle was starting to pick up, right-wing pages channeled anti-Muslim hate in their “invasion” narratives. […]

    Anti-Muslim “invasion” narratives continued to escalate in 2016, through the presidential elections, and into 2017. […]

    Right-wing pages utilize “invasion” rhetoric as part of a larger anti-immigrant propaganda campaign. They have implemented the narrative twice in the past year alone. […]

    • Democritus says:

      Thanks Harpie, that ladies work is great, and her previous piece on Trumps Facebook ads with Invasion tropes was stolen by Kaplan at the NYT.

  61. Vicks says:

    Thank you for the open thread.
    I was looking at the images of Trump’s thumbs up photo next to images of Obama and started thinking about the other comparisons people make to Trump and the world’s worst dictators.
    No images of them giving comfort during a tragedy came to me.
    It made me realize that many of the people that trump surrounds himself with still have enough power and influence to make him go out there and try to act like he cares, and be concerned when he fails.
    Tump was not humbled by the fact that victims in the hospital put “do not disturb” signs on their doors he was enraged.

    • harpie says:

      …just want to spell out here what the screenshot says. We don’t know who the author is.
      https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1160187667172274177
      6:54 AM – 10 Aug 2019

      First reaction: There should be hearings as to how this was allowed to happen to a key witness in an investigation involving a global sex-trafficking conspiracy.

      Second reaction: A former federal prosecutor informs me about this secord-order effect in terms of legal procedure. [screenshot]

      [transcription] Background. An important note after Epstein’s death: no one else will have standing to challenge the search warrant on his house. Everything will be admissible against any other defendant without possibility of a motion to suppress.

      • Mooser says:

        “Everything will be admissible against any other defendant without possibility of a motion to suppress.”

        And Epstein won’t be around to deny, obfuscate, make legal maneuvers, etc. I am not very anal, but I think Epstein’s death made it worse, not better.

      • Democritus says:

        Thanks Harpie, I’ve been typing too much for my uncooperative body and am very sore. So shorter, no comments!

        Note IANAL! Closest I came was the LSAT, which I must say was child’s play for an aspie.

  65. Democritus says:

    FUCK THE RACIST POS NYT

    https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1160196267382755329

    Best 2 responses in thread:

    “Nice White Power piece Bari.”

    “Would you sing a different tune if in Germany, a famous painting regarding German history depicted Nazis forcing Jews into gas chambers. Nazi soldiers trampling over Jewish bodies. It’s history, true. Yet, it causes people pain.

    This is also hurtful. Try to understand that.”

    Maybe she could visit Canyon De Chelly were there was a massacre not even 200 years ago. The army had the last of the Navajo Warriors trap and they slaughtered them through and through. Oh no what we might cover up of our leaders committing genocide?

    • Mooser says:

      As goes the Right, so goes the all-rightnik. That’s the way the unleavened baked goods crumble, into a half-baked cracker.

        • Democritus says:

          :) Psssst. There is a march for unity!

          Tent Sept 21, finally on the weekend! I have been screaming all over the place for this I’m so glad someone else with the ability to do so is finally doing it!

          We as a country (not the blog) need to stop pretending we are so helpless, and we need to stop letting our Democratic leaders do so as well.

          And for everyones viewing please see meowing Big Cats, Cheetahs 😸<- my cat moji looks like a Vegas lounge lizard kitty :D

          https://twitter.com/jray05/status/1159551063139028992

  68. Eureka says:

    Scaramucci going the Cohen route just now (in the last hour, Trump just fired back at him for what he said on Bill Maher last night):

    “For the last 3 years I have fully supported this President. Recently he has said things that divide the country in a way that is unacceptable. So I didn’t make the 100% litmus test. Eventually he turns on on everyone and soon it will be you and then the entire country.…”
    https://twitter.com/Scaramucci/status/1160391209774284800

  69. Eureka says:

    Couple other items may have been buried under other news today:

    Bellingcat thread with article and link to captured js files:

    “Major update on the ProtonMail phishing attacks, establishing over 30 individuals working on topics related to Russia have been targeted. (article link)”
    https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1160196966921527297
    …
    “There’s a lot of interesting things to be found in the Javascript used as part of the attack, including a phrase used by Guccifer 2.0. (screenshot) ”
    –

    Also, Trump reminding donors that he really hates *everybody* but the lilies. Grueskin threads articles with prior Trump acts of “Asian” mocking:

    “Guess who was mimicking Asian accents. At an expensive fundraiser. In the Hamptons.… ”
    https://twitter.com/BGrueskin/status/1160201024537317376

  70. harpie says:

    awwwwww…MOOCH is feeling sorry for himself:
    https://twitter.com/Scaramucci/status/1160508048798113793
    4:07 AM – 11 Aug 2019

    For the last 3 years I have fully supported this President. Recently he has said things that divide the country in a way that is unacceptable. So I didn’t pass the 100% litmus test. Eventually he turns on everyone and soon it will be you and then the entire country.

    You’ve got to be KIDDING me…”unacceptable” ?????
    The ONLY response to this:
    https://twitter.com/justinhendrix/status/1160533746082373633
    5:49 AM – 11 Aug 2019

    “Fully supported” the racist, bigoted campaign that started with calling Mexicans rapists.
    “Fully supported” his ‘both sides’ debacle of a response to Charlottesville.
    “Fully supported” brutal family separation.
    “Fully supported” criminal behavior and obstruction of justice.

    …and I would add: …etc,etc,etc,etc…

    Hendrix continues:

    @Scaramucci for some reason people continue to welcome you on television. I’ll start to forgive you when you fully renounce this President in every appearance, and start with a heartfelt mea culpa for what you did to help install and defend this utterly unfit, dangerous buffoon.

    I don’t feel I can be as forgiving as him, to be honest.
    #RIPGOP

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Recently said things, but not done things, personally or through the offal he portrays as personnel choices?

      That would be Scaramucci performing an inverted double axle, a form of corporate apology.

      Moves with that degree of difficulty are not warnings or true apologies: they admit little, and offer no restitution or changed behavior. They are intended to appease without offending the predator, and to enable further predation.

      Mr. Scaramucci should crawl back into the hole he came from. Mr. Trump should soon join him.

  71. Democritus says:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/debrajsaunders/status/1160601304307294208

    How much you wanna bet this stupid bitch believes that employers should be able to fire gay people for being born gay, that hospital should be able to refuse service to gay people, that pharmacy should be able to refuse service to gay people- and that hotels, and apartments, and restaurants, and grocery stores should all be allowed to refuse service to gay people.

    But oh no they published data that is public *specifically for transparency purposes*.

    This woman is a cuntacular whorebiscuit and I’m sure she would think me saying that phrase is also worse than kicking a gay person out of housing for who they love.

    • Rayne says:

      I swear like a sea cook, especially when I’m angry, but I tend to shut down when I see the N-word or C-word.

      Saunders should be pointedly asked if she supports democracy, and if she does, why can’t the citizens of democracy know who is funding which candidates regardless of whether the donors are individuals or businesses.

      Right-wingers are NOT being forced to admit they don’t like or support democracy and transparency necessary to a true democracy.

      • P J Evans says:

        I’ve donated to candidates, and I knew damned well when I did it that it was public information. Shouldn’t right-wingers be able to understand that much?

        • Rayne says:

          They apparently believe the investor/capital class has different rights than the average citizen has — that’s just plain fascist.

          This is why we should be asking every single candidate,
          — Do you believe in democracy?
          — Do you believe all humans are created equal?
          — Do you believe every citizen has a right to vote?
          — Do you believe government’s powers arise from the consent of the governed?
          — Do you believe the government should be accountable to the people?
          — Do you believe the government should be transparent?

          And then pick off the ones who waffle or refuse to support democracy. Iterated often enough, assholes like Debbie Saunders will have to confront their own autocratic fascism.

          EDIT: I suppose I need to write a post to this effect. ~sigh~

        • P J Evans says:

          I guess they think all investors have millions. I have, like, 400K – and most of that was my share of my mother’s estate. (I don’t spend wildly.)

      • orionATL says:

        rayne –

        i don’t know what your galley would sound like if the sea was rolling and the ship pitching, but i do know that you are the only member of the educated class other than myself who uses the phrase “pig-fucker”. 😂

  73. P J Evans says:

    “Trump didn’t start the racial fire. He just brought the kerosene, rocket fuel, and s’mores” – diary title at Kos

    • Vicks says:

      Pretty sure that qualifies as another Trump action (or inaction) that compromises our national security,
      What is the line between being a menace to our country and being an enemy?
      Speaking of enemies to our country, is Steve Bannon getting more airtime or am I imagining it?

      • P J Evans says:

        I don’t think you’re imagining it. He’s sliming his way back into the media and, he hopes, into Tr*mp’s favor again.

  74. Savage Librarian says:

    “Latina organizer Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez enters Democratic primary to challenge Republican John Cornyn”

    “Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, who helped found the Workers Defense Project and Jolt Texas, is the latest Democrat to announce a bid to deny Cornyn a fourth term.”

    Tzintzún Ramirez made her candidacy official in a video Monday morning.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/latina-organizer-cristina-tzintzun-ramirez-enters-democratic-primary-to-challenge-republican-john-cornyn/

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